HAM/1/19/24
Letter from William Napier (later 7th Lord Napier) to Mary Hamilton
Diplomatic Text
8th-
Canterbury Decr, 2d. 1772 X
Yours My dearest Mary of thursday morning
(as dated) came Safe to hand last night[1]
[2]and I promise you not to deʃire long
letters from you again unleʃs you are
reʃolved not to turn every thing I write
against me you ʃay I have chagrined
you, recollect the two first pages of
the letter I have now lying before me
and I make no doubt but your own
justice will oblige you to own that I
have more reaʃon, what a fine
Character you give of me, you could
eaʃily retaliate upon me did you not
know by experience if you did not
that it would have no effect on me
does not that inʃinuate that I do not pique
myself in writing truth to my friends
but ʃince you do not like truth from
me (as upon my honor I never wrote
one single word to you that I did not
think you deʃerved) I shall for the future
[3]write falsehoods, to begin you are no Phenix
of the Age[4] so dont believe a word I wrote
about that, I have not the least regard,
Love, or friendʃhip, for you, I really can
say no worse of you so shall drop the
subject as far as answering your letter
will allow me. Be aʃsured I shall never
again unleʃs you deʃire me, Mention a
Regiment or officers whither they be old,
young, or Handʃome, had you not deʃired
some time ago to be informed about
them I should very likely never have
thought on them, & I thought it was
natural enough to inquire who they
were at N --- [5] that I might
have given you a more ʃatisfactory
anʃwer then I was capable off before
they arrived eʃpecially as I am almost
a Stranger to the most of them, but
away with ʃuch Stuff you really my
dearest Girl made a great mistake or
I have wrote what I never deʃigned, what
I mean't by female Correspondants was
not to you, it was entirely in a figura=
tive stile supposing a chit, chat, letter
from two Miʃses that had sworn the
greatest Friendʃhip for each other
which the flirting of a Fan put an
end too at once. But as you have
quite mistaken my meaning in every
one word where you are concerned
I must lay it all to the deʃiring a monstrous
long letter, that put you out of humour
(if thats poʃsible) if I dare use the expreʃsi
on after what I promised above)
or to the dull dreary month of Novr, in which
other Nations ʃay we hang our selves in
[6]I did bid you write without reserve &
hope you will always do so to me
as nothing I know I like so well from
those I have a regard for -- Hold
I forgot I have no regard for you nor
do I care what you write. But I find
I am always making blunders ʃo the
best thing I can do is to beg you'll
[7]preʃent my best Compliments and
Wiʃhes to Mrs Hamilton & believe that
I am not, or ever was, your most sin-
cere or affctly- yours &c -- Wm Napier
Miʃs Hamilton may expect her puppy
some time next month or beginning
of Feby- providing Povey has any that
I think is worthy to be ʃent here.
red text is normalised and/or unformatted in other panel)
Notes
1. Since Napier's letter is dated (Wednesday) 2 December, Hamilton's must have been dated six days earlier, on 26 November.
2. A vertical line in red crayon in the left margin marks a passage of four lines. No extracts from this letter appear to have made it into Anson & Anson (1925), however.
3. Another passage of four lines is marked off by a marginal red line.
4. One of the compliments he had paid her in HAM/1/19/23 p.2 n.2.
5. No doubt it is the body of the town ‘Northampton’ that Hamilton has eradicated, even more thoroughly than usual.
6. A passage of five lines altogether is marked off by a marginal red line that is continued at the top of the next page.
7. The last four lines are again marked off by a marginal red line.
Normalised Text
Canterbury December 2d. 1772
Yours My dearest Mary of thursday morning
(as dated) came Safe to hand last night
and I promise you not to desire long
letters from you again unless you are
resolved not to turn every thing I write
against me you say I have chagrined
you, recollect the two first pages of
the letter I have now lying before me
and I make no doubt but your own
justice will oblige you to own that I
have more reason, what a fine
Character you give of me, you could
easily retaliate upon me did you not
know by experience
that it would have no effect on me
does not that insinuate that I do not pique
myself in writing truth to my friends
but since you do not like truth from
me (as upon my honour I never wrote
one single word to you that I did not
think you deserved) I shall for the future
write falsehoods, to begin you are no Phoenix
of the Age so don't believe a word I wrote
about that, I have not the least regard,
Love, or friendship, for you, I really can
say no worse of you so shall drop the
subject as far as answering your letter
will allow me. Be assured I shall never
again unless you desire me, Mention a
Regiment or officers whether they be old,
young, or Handsome, had you not desired
some time ago to be informed about
them I should very likely never have
thought on them, & I thought it was
natural enough to inquire who they
were at N --- that I might
have given you a more satisfactory
answer than I was capable of before
they arrived especially as I am almost
a Stranger to the most of them, but
away with such Stuff you really my
dearest Girl made a great mistake or
I have written what I never designed, what
I meant by female Correspondents was
not to you, it was entirely in a figurative
style supposing a chit, chat, letter
from two Misses that had sworn the
greatest Friendship for each other
which the flirting of a Fan put an
end to at once. But as you have
quite mistaken my meaning in every
one word where you are concerned
I must lay it all to the desiring a monstrous
long letter, that put you out of humour
(if that's possible) if I dare use the expression
after what I promised above)
or to the dull dreary month of November in which
other Nations say we hang our selves in
I did bid you write without reserve &
hope you will always do so to me
as nothing I know I like so well from
those I have a regard for -- Hold
I forgot I have no regard for you nor
do I care what you write. But I find
I am always making blunders so the
best thing I can do is to beg you'll
present my best Compliments and
Wishes to Mrs Hamilton & believe that
I am not, or ever was, your most sincere
or affectionately yours &c -- William Napier
Miss Hamilton may expect her puppy
some time next month or beginning
of February providing Povey has any that
I think is worthy to be sent here.
quotations, spellings, uncorrected forms, split words, abbreviations, formatting)
Notes
Metadata
Library References
Repository: John Rylands Research Institute and Library, University of Manchester
Archive: Mary Hamilton Papers
Item title: Letter from William Napier (later 7th Lord Napier) to Mary Hamilton
Shelfmark: HAM/1/19/24
Correspondence Details
Sender: William Napier, 7th Lord
Place sent: Canterbury
Addressee: Mary Hamilton
Place received: Northampton (certainty: low)
Date sent: 2 December 1772
Letter Description
Summary: Letter from William Napier [later 7th Lord Napier] to Mary Hamilton. He writes that he has received Hamilton's last letter and promises not to ask her for a long letter again if she means to 'turn every thing I write against me'. Napier writes of what a 'fine character' Hamilton had given him, and that she has only to recall the first two pages of her last letter to know that he has the better reason to feel chagrined. He writes in jest that she does not like the truth, and from now on he will write only falsehoods, and to begin with, he states that he does not have 'the least regard, Love, or friendship for you'. Hamilton has criticized Napier for his use of the term 'female Correspondants [sic]' in his last letter, and he defends himself by noting that it was purely a figure of speech 'supposing a chit, chat, letter from two Misses that had sworn the greatest Friendship for each other which the flirting of a Fan put an end too [sic] at once'. He writes that she has mistaken his meaning, and as he is always 'making blunders so the best thing I can do is to beg' his compliments be given to her mother.
Napier adds at the bottom of the sheet that Hamilton can expect her puppy next month (see HAM/1/19/41).
Dated at Canterbury.
Length: 1 sheet, 554 words
Transliteration Information
Editorial declaration: First edited in the project 'Image to Text' (David Denison & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2013-2019), now incorporated in the project 'Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers' (Hannah Barker, Sophie Coulombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassandra Ulph, Christine Wallis & Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, 2019-2023).
All quotation marks are retained in the text and are represented by appropriate Unicode characters. Words split across two lines may have a hyphen on the first, the second or both fragments (reco-|ver, imperfect|-ly, satisfacti-|-on); or a double hyphen (pur=|port, dan|=ger, qua=|=litys); or none (respect|ing). Any point in abbreviations with superscripted letter(s) is placed last, regardless of relative left-right orientation in the original. Thus, Mrs. or Mrs may occur, but M.rs or Mr.s do not.
Acknowledgements: XML version: Research Assistant funding in 2017/18 provided by the Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Manchester.
Research assistant: Georgia Tutt, MA student, University of Manchester
Transliterator: Kayleigh Ryan, undergraduate student, University of Manchester (submitted May 2018)
Cataloguer: Lisa Crawley, Archivist, The John Rylands Library
Cataloguer: John Hodgson, Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Research Institute and Library
Copyright: Transcriptions, notes and TEI/XML © the editors
Revision date: 2 November 2021